


Memorize

by cricket_aria



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drell Memories, F/M, Vacation Time, post-ME2 pre-ME3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8017168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/pseuds/cricket_aria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard had never realized that it was possible for drell to keep their flashes of memories to themselves until she catches Thane at it as the end of their time together nears. What memories does he find so private that he won't speak them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memorize

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gamerfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/gifts).



Thane didn't need to narrate what he saw whenever he flashed back to some old memory.

In retrospect it seemed obvious. Though she hadn't met many drell, none of the others peppered every conversation with flickers of the past the way he did, prone to losing sight of the person directly in front of them at any given moment by a scene years distant. But it had never even occurred to her that maybe it was possible to internalize the things they saw instead of describing in out loud; she’d just accepted it as a drell thing that his past would be an ever-present part of their relationship

She was fine with that. In the here and now he’d chosen to be with her, _alive_ with her, when before he’d given up on any life at all. She could stand to share that time with memories of his wife or his past kills. He’d be leaving her for them soon enough at any rate, although she hated thinking it.

They were in Arizona, in the middle of the desert, when she found out otherwise. When she’d gotten dropped off there Kelly had cooed a little about how cute it was that she was taking him to see the human homeworld, not realizing that it had nothing to do with sentimentality. If she’d had her choice they’d have gone somewhere that mattered to her, or to him, a place that either of them had any type of connection to beyond the fact that her species had sprung up on its surface. She might have seen if she was remembering long ago geography lessons correctly in thinking there was a small desert on Mindoir, shown him a little of the world that had shaped her.

Being in a place she’d never seen before the attack might even have kept being there from hurting too badly.

No, she’d chosen Earth so that those watching with bated breath to see if she’d actually turn herself in for the destruction of the Alpha Relay could see that she was making her way toward Vancouver, even if she’d taken a sidetrip along the way. She wasn’t going to hide from what she’d done, or wave around her Spectre status and leave relations between the Alliance and the Hegemony on the edge of war because the one potential scapegoat they had to cool things down was untouchable.

Though she knew some of the crew wondered why she’d even bothered to accept the Council's pitiful attempt at placating her with reinstatement when they refused to actually offer help with the Collectors, if she wasn’t even going to use that status in a situation like the one she was stuck in.

But even if Earth wasn’t where she’d have chosen for their one short vacation together, it wasn’t a bad place to be. With interplanetary colonization an option, and the subsidies provided to get new colonies off the ground even allowing those who were too poor to move to new places on the homeworld to take part, humanity had abandoned the more inhospitable areas of Earth in droves. All that was left were the people with a real love of the land, and many many abandoned buildings, many still full of left-behind belongings too large to be taken into space.

Any other world they’d have been in a hotel with other guests around to gawk at the famous Commander Shepard or camping out in the sands. On Earth they could find a comfortable house that hadn’t been abandoned long enough to start crumbling, shake the scorpions out of the bed, and make themselves at home. They were still cooking over fires in the yard, still scrubbing down with damp towels, the utilities in the building having been long-since turned off, but having a real bed made a big difference.

Especially when they were doing their best to get enough use out of it to satisfy them until they had a chance to meet again.

(If they’d ever have a chance to meet again, if the trial didn’t keep her locked away until his illness had taken him across his sea and she didn’t even have a chance to be beside him when his time came, was something she tried to avoid thinking.)

They were in that bed when she made her discovery. Still coming down from the high of his skin she didn’t realize at first that she really was seeing his eyes shift and flicker the way they did when he was caught in a memory, it wasn't just her imagination. But he remained silent, giving her no clue to what he was seeing.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” she said, gently turning his face so she could look at him more clearly as he came fully back to the present. “Keep your memories to yourself.”

She didn’t expect him to look embarrassed, his inner lids narrowing over his eyes in a way she recognized from the vids Mordin had sent her as the drell equivalent of a blush although she’d never actually seen Thane do it. “I should have realized that you would notice that, Siha. Not much gets past your eyes.” He pulled her closer. His body was cool against hers, a contrast that it had taken some time to get fully used to but which she was grateful to in the hot desert. “In the years since learning of my eventual fate I’ve stopped making any attempt to hold my memories within me. There seemed little point when there’s nothing in my memories that would shame me to have others hear of it, and soon enough it will be impossible for anyone to use anything they overhear against me. And... perhaps on some level I hoped that by verbalizing them my memories of important times they will not be lost with my passing, that those who hear me speak of them, who see them through my words, will continue to carry them once I no longer can.”

“I know that I won’t forget,” she assured him, her hand still at his face, stroking gently back and forth along the curve of his chin. “But if that’s how you feel, why change it now?”

“It is not that I feel shame for what I was remembering, or that I would be bothered by your hearing it some day in the future. It is simply... too near, too close.” His eyes filmed over slightly again and his voice slowed, rather than reliving a memory for her as if he were caught up in that instant instead picking his description with care. “I was reliving just a few moments ago. Your hair, spread across the pillow. Your face as you let go of yourself. The feeling of your fingernails in my shoulder, your toes dragging up the back of my leg.”

She stared at him, a slow smile creeping across her face, then burst out laughing. “Why Thane Krios, were you having _dirty fantasies_ about me? Didn’t I tire you out enough already?”

“That is not quite how I’d put it,” he said, but there was a laugh in his voice as well. “You are so lovely, Siha, and the sight of you losing the control you usually hold so tightly, knowing that I am the cause of it, is one that I’m loathe to release too quickly. It is the first time you’ve caught at it, but not the first time I’ve remained caught by your memory even after you have ‘tired me out’ too much to keep drawing out new ones.”

“Well that’s just about the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she said, then paused, her hand going still against him. “But, uh, Thane? In spite of all the talk about having no reason to hold in your memories now... keep those ones just between us, okay?”

“You have no reason to be ashamed, Shepard. Why, Joker seemed enthralled when I relived our first night together in front of him.”

“You didn’t,” she said, glaring at the smirk on his face.

“I didn’t,” he agreed, the look softening back into a smile. “There is no need to worry, those memories are not mine alone to share. I would not offer them to others. I, selfishly, would not wish to.”

“Good,” she said, falling back against her pillow with another laugh. “Otherwise I can promise you, Kiros, if I’m given any conjugal visits where I’m going the only one I’ll invite over is Tali, if she can bring me a suit with a nerve-stim application rigged up to work on humans.”

“A terrible threat indeed, Siha,” he agreed, although he held her a little bit more tightly at the reminder of what would be happening after they left the desert.

“Go right on replaying those memories, Thane,” she said, shifting closer to him even as she let her body relax. “I’m going to rest up, and then we can set to work making some more. Enough to last until I’m a free woman again.”

“There will never be enough,” he said, his voice fierce. “Even if they recognize that you did only what needed to be done and release you the morning after you turn yourself into them, memories alone will not be enough to make up for the time which they’ll have stolen from us. Still...” he rested his head against hers, lips brushing across her brow, “I do look forward to making them.”


End file.
